The synaptic firings of a complex neuronal jelly digitized for your benefit.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Amen!

September 14, 2005Failure of an Idea -- And a PeopleBy David Brooks

In his 1935 State of the Union Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt(FDR) spoke to a nation mired in the Depression, but still marinatedin conservative values:

"Continued dependence" upon welfare, said FDR, "induces a spiritualdisintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. Todole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtledestroyer of the human spirit."

Behind FDR's statement was the conviction that, while the governmentmust step in in an emergency, in normal times, men provide the food,clothing and shelter for their families.

And we did, until the war pulled us out of the Depression and apostwar boom made us, in John K. Galbraith's phrase, The AffluentSociety. By the 1960s, America, the richest country on earth, wasgrowing ever more prosperous. But with the 1964 landslide of LBJ,liberalism triumphed and began its great experiment.

Behind the Great Society was a great idea: to lift America's poor outof poverty, government should now take care of all their basic needs.By giving the poor welfare, subsidized food, public housing and freemedical care, government will end poverty in America.

At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, we saw the failureof 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina passed by andthe 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should havetaken charge in helping the aged, the sick and the women with babiesto safety took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape. The New Orleanspolice, their numbers cut by deserters who left their posts to lookafter their families, engaged in running gun battles all day long tostay alive and protect people.

It was the character and conduct of its people that makes the NewOrleans disaster unique. After a hurricane, people's needs are simple:food, water, shelter, medical attention. But they can be hard to meet.

People buried in rubble or hiding in attics of flooded homes are toughto get to. But, even with the incompetence of the mayor and governor,and the torpor of federal officials, this was possible.

Coast Guard helicopters were operating Tuesday. There were roads openinto the city for SUVs, buses and trucks. While New Orleans wasflooded, the water was stagnant. People walked through to theconvention center and Superdome. The flimsiest boat could navigate.

Even if government dithered for days -- what else is new -- this doesnot explain the failure of the people themselves!

Between 1865 and 1940, the South -- having lost a fourth of its bestand bravest in battle, devastated by war, mired in poverty -- wasfamous for the hardy self-reliance of her people, black and white.

In 1940, hundreds of British fishermen and yachtsmen sailed back andforth daily under fire across a turbulent 23-mile Channel to rescue300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk. How do we explain to the world that atenth of that number of Americans could not be reached in four daysfrom across a stagnant pond?

The real disaster of Katrina was that society broke down. An entirecommunity could not cope. Liberalism, the idea that good intentionsand government programs can build a Great Society, was exposed asfraud. After trillions of tax dollars for welfare, food stamps, publichousing, job training and education have poured out since 1965,poverty remains pandemic. But today, when the police vanish, thecommunity disappears and men take to the streets to prey on women andthe weak.

Stranded for days in a pool of fetid water, almost everyone waited forthe government to come save them. They screamed into the cameras forhelp, and the reporters screamed into the cameras for help, and the"civil rights leaders" screamed into the cameras that Bush wasresponsible and Bush was a racist.

Americans were once famous for taking the initiative, for having youngleaders rise up to take command in a crisis. See any of that at theSuperdome? Sri Lankans and Indonesians, far poorer than we, did notbehave like this in a tsunami that took 400 times as many lives asKatrina has thus far.

We are the descendants of men and women who braved the North Atlanticin wooden boats to build a country in a strange land. Our ancestorstraveled thousands of miles in covered wagons, fighting off Indiansfar braver than those cowards preying on New Orleans' poor.

Watching that performance in the Crescent City, it seems clear: We arenot the people our parents were. And what are all our Lords Temporalnow howling for? Though government failed at every level, they wantmore government.

FDR was right. A "spiritual disintegration" has overtaken us.Government-as-first provider, the big idea of the Great Society, hasproven to be "a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

3 comments:

Interesting point of view. I agree for the most part. But Don't forget that even though we may not see it on the 6 o'clock news, there are many people who have risen to the occasion to help those in need. People from all over the country have volunteered their time and energy to help people that they have never met.

About Me

A quivering mass of neurons stored on a dusty shelf in a jar of cerebrospinal fluid. A single dying 9 volt battery with corroding contacts powers the filmy container. A lone led winks on and off, casting dim shadows against the storeroom walls.